Ukrainian community in Jersey City frets for loved ones in faraway homeland

Thousands of miles away from their homeland, Ukrainians attending church in Jersey City today said they are frightened for relatives back home and they are riveted by the news of quickly changing events in their native country.

Alexander Semeniv, 47, of Jersey City, a member of Sts. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Roman Catholic Church on Bentley Avenue said his son is attending school in Kiev.

Fearful for his son's safety, Semeniv said, "We speak everyday," adding his son was scheduled to return home in the summer.

Some 110 families in the church have familial ties to the Ukraine, said the Rev. Vasy Putera.

"Let's pray for peace," he told his congregation.

Following several months of anti-government protests, and a brutal push back by President Viktor Yanukovych, the president fled the capital city of Kiev yesterday and his nemesis, former Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko, was released from a penitentiary hospital. In a speech made from a wheelchair, Tymoshenko immediately joined the protests in Kiev and declared her candidacy for president in the May elections.

Igor Kolinets, who has lived in Jersey City since 1996, said a power vacuum now exists in the Ukraine given the overwhelming Parliamentary vote to oust Yanukovych, a vote he believes was unavoidable.

"He was a murderer," said Kolinets of Yanukovych, who's fled the country. "He found a way to imprison Yulia Tymoshenko."

Galyna Bartkiv, 22, who works with the Ukrainian-American Youth Association said she was on her way to join a large gathering at the Ukrainian embassy in New York City to show solidarity with the protesters in the Ukraine.

"This is a very active community and politics plays a big role," said Olena Tylko-Halkowycztalksa, parishioner of the church and member of the Ukrainian-American Association.